From Dead to Worse (Sookie Stackhouse #8)(60)
Author: Charlaine Harris

"I can’t believe you’re doing this to me!" Tanya shrieked the second her mouth would work. "I can’t believe you kidnapped me like a caveman, you big jerk!" If her hands had been free, Calvin would have taken a pummeling. "And what the hell is up with this smoke? Sookie, are you trying to burn your house down? Hey, woman, would you get that crap out of my face?" Tanya batted at the vine-wrapped bone with her bound hands.

"I’m Octavia Fant."

"Well, goody, Octavia Fant. Get me out of these ropes!" Octavia and Amelia exchanged glances.

Tanya appealed to me. "Sookie, tell these nuts to let me go! Calvin, I was halfway interested in you before you tied me up and dumped me here! What did you think you were doing?"

"Saving your life," Calvin said. "You ain’t gonna run now, are you? We got some talking to do."

"Okay," Tanya said slowly, as she realized (I could hear her) that something serious was afoot. "What’s all this about?"

"Sandra Pelt," I said.

"Yeah, I know Sandra. What about her?"

"What’s your connection?" Amelia asked.

"What’s your interest, Amy?" Tanya countered.

"Amelia," I corrected, sitting on the big ottoman in front of Tanya. "And you need to answer this question."

Tanya gave me a sharp look – she had a repertoire of them – and said, "I used to have a cousin who was adopted by the Pelts, and Sandra was my cousin’s adopted sister."

"Do you have a close friendship with Sandra?" I said.

"No, not especially. I haven’t seen her in a while."

"You didn’t make a bargain with her recently?"

"No, Sandra and I don’t see each other too much."

"What do you think of her?" Octavia asked.

"I think she’s a double-barreled bitch. But I sort of admire her," Tanya said. "If Sandra wants something, she goes after it." She shrugged. "She’s kind of extreme for my taste."

"So if she told you to ruin someone’s life, you wouldn’t do it?" Octavia was eyeing Tanya intently.

"I got better fish to fry than that," Tanya said. "She can go around ruining lives on her own, if she wants to do it so bad."

"You wouldn’t be a part of that?"

"No," Tanya said. She was sincere, I could tell. In fact, she was beginning to get anxious at our line of questioning. "Ah, have I done something bad to somebody?"

"I think you got in a little over your head," Calvin said. "These nice ladies have intervened. Amelia and Miss Octavia are, ah, wise women. And you know Sookie already."

"Yeah, I know Sookie." Tanya gave me a sour look. "She won’t make friends with me no matter what I do."

Well, yeah, I didn’t want you close enough to stab me in the back, I thought, but I didn’t say anything.

"Tanya, you’ve taken my sister-in-law shopping a little too much lately," I said.

Tanya burst into laughter. "Too much retail therapy for the pregnant bride?" she said. But then she looked puzzled. "Yeah, it does seem like we went to the mall in Monroe too many times for my checkbook. Where’d I get the money? I don’t even like shopping that much. Why’d I do that?"

"You’re not going to do it anymore," Calvin said.

"You don’t tell me what I’m going to do, Calvin Norris!" Tanya shot back. "I won’t go shopping because I don’t want to go, not because you tell me not to."

Calvin looked relieved.

Amelia and Octavia looked relieved.

We all nodded simultaneously. This was Tanya, all right. And she seemed to be minus the destructive guidance of Sandra Pelt. I didn’t know if Sandra had whipped up some witchcraft of her own, or if she’d just offered Tanya a lot of money and talked her into thinking Debbie’s death was my fault, but the witches appeared to have been successful in excising the tainted Sandra portion of Tanya’s character.

I felt oddly deflated at this easy – easy to me, that is – removal of a real thorn in my side. I found myself wishing we could abduct Sandra Pelt and reprogram her, too. I didn’t think she’d be as easy to convert. There had been some big pathology going on in the Pelt family.

The witches were happy. Calvin was pleased. I was relieved. Calvin told Tanya he was going to take her back to Hotshot. The somewhat-puzzled Tanya made her departure with a lot more dignity than her entrance. She didn’t understand why she’d been in my house and she didn’t seem to remember what the witches had done. But she also didn’t seem upset about that confusion in her memory.

The best of all possible worlds.

Maybe Jason and Crystal could work things out now that Tanya’s pernicious influence was gone. After all, Crystal had really wanted to marry Jason, and she had seemed genuinely pleased that she was pregnant again. Why she was so discontented now… I simply didn’t get it.

I could add her to the long list of people I didn’t understand.

While the witches cleaned up the living room with the windows open – though it was a chilly night, I wanted to get rid of the lingering smell of the herbs – I sprawled on my bed with a book. I found I wasn’t focused enough to read. Finally, I decided to go outside, and I threw on a hoody and called to Amelia to let her know. I sat in one of the wooden chairs Amelia and I had bought at Wal-Mart at end-of-summer clearance-sale prices, and I admired the matching table with its umbrella all over again. I reminded myself to take the umbrella down and cover the furniture for the winter. Then I leaned back and let go of my thoughts.

For a while it was nice to simply be outside, smelling the trees and the ground, hearing a whip-poor-will give its enigmatic call from the surrounding woods. The security light made me feel safe, though I knew that was an illusion. If there’s light, you can just see what’s coming for you a little more clearly.

Bill stepped out of the woods and strolled silently over to the yard set. He sat in one of the other chairs.

We didn’t speak for several moments. I didn’t feel the surge of anguish I’d felt over the past few months when he was around. He barely disturbed the fall night with his presence, he was so much a part of it.

"Selah has moved to Little Rock," he said.

"How come?"

"She got a position with a large firm," he said. "It was what she told me she wanted. They specialize in vampire properties."

"She hooked on vamps?"

"I believe so. Not my doing."

"Weren’t you her first?" Maybe I sounded a little bitter. He’d been my first, in every way.

"Don’t," he said, and turned his face toward me. It was radiantly pale. "No," he said finally. "I was not her first. And I always knew it was the vampire in me that attracted her, not the person who was a vampire."